


Fashionably Late

by my_angry_angel



Category: Captain America
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-14
Updated: 2012-05-14
Packaged: 2017-11-05 08:30:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_angry_angel/pseuds/my_angry_angel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve decides to look up Peggy, then goes to visit her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fashionably Late

**Author's Note:**

> For a less happy ending, check out this lovely piece written by a Steve rp'er on Tumblr: http://behindthestripes.tumblr.com/post/22999886064/goodbye-magaret-peggy-carter-drabble

_The plane was dropping fast. Steve was surprised to see the whitecaps below. He’d always though the ocean was calm so far off shore._

_“Eight o'clock on the dot,” Peggy’s voice came over the radio. “Don't you dare be late! Understood?”_

_“You know, I still don’t know how to dance,” Steve replied._

_“I’ll show you how,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “Just be there.”_

_“You’ll have the band play somethin’ slow. I’d hate to step on your--“_

Steve sat up with a strangled cry. It wasn’t the first time he’d had that dream, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last. Until he found Peggy and apologized to her, he wouldn’t be able to sleep peacefully. Though it was still an hour before he normally woke up, he slipped out of bed and started out of the room. It was still hard for him to think of it as _his_ room.

He went down to the gym to box, and wound up working out longer than usual. And breaking more punching bags than normal. When he finished, it still wasn’t time for breakfast. So he sat down at one of the computers he had authority to use and, on a whim, searched for Peggy. Tony had been teaching him to use a computer, so he could at least navigate around the internet. The search returned well over three million results. He refined the search several times, and finally found her through a marriage license. From there, he found out she had three children, and lost a fourth during pregnancy.

Finding her was the easy part. Convincing Fury to let him go down there was much more difficult, but the director eventually conceded, on the condition that two agents stay with him at all times. Steve, of course, agreed and they left later that day. With the speed of the quinjet, the flight was much shorter than Steve had expected. When the landed, the agents, two stocky men who Steve could hardly tell apart, ushered the Captain into a car and started driving.

Rogers convinced them to stop at a store and bought her a bouquet of flowers. The salesgirl assumed he was buying them for his wife for Mother’s Day, an assumption Steve didn’t bother correcting. Though he had forgotten about the day. After all, he hadn’t celebrated it in over seventy years.

Roses in hand, they finished the drive to the nursing home. It took some time for the receptionist to give Steve Peggy’s room number. He was too young to pass himself off as her child, and the receptionist had seen all of her grandchildren. But he eventually convinced her that his dad had been one of her friends several years before, and he just wanted to stop in and say hello.

The nursing home was mostly deserted. Doubtless, the residents were all out with their kids celebrating the day. But he occasionally passed a few elderly patients who either had no family, or whose families had dumped them there and forgotten about them. 

Peggy’s room was empty, but a nurse saw him looking around outside the door, and she directed him down the hall to the TV room. Mrs. Richens would be there, she assured him. Steve followed her directions, and found a withered old woman seated in a wheelchair, watching TV. Nobody else was in the room. The Captain paused in the doorway, looking around. That couldn’t be his Peggy. She looked so different.

Regardless, he stepped into the room and slowly went to sit next to her, ignoring the agents hovering just a few feet behind him. “Peggy Carter?” he asked as he sat down.

She looked at him with a sweet smile. “Oh no, dear. I haven’t been Carter in years. It’s Richens now.” She peered at him with eyes clouded by cataracts. “Do I know you?” she asked after a long time.

“You did a long time ago,” Steve answered. “You were going to teach me to dance seventy years ago, but I missed our date.”

He could practically see the wheels turning in her head as she tried to work out his meaning. When it dawned on her, her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “Steve?” she whispered weakly. “Is it really you?”

“Yeah, Peggy,” he answered, slowly moving to take her hand. “Sorry I’m late.”

“But...how? You crashed the plane in the ocean.”

“I was frozen, but I got revived a few months back.” 

Peggy’s hands groped out toward him, and he slowly leaned forward, holding very still so she could feel her way around his face. After several minutes, she pulled back and gave a soft gasp, her eyes tearing up. “It really is you,” she said softly.

He nodded and took her hand. “Golly, Peggy, I’m sorry. I should have been there for you. Maybe if I had...” he trailed off, looking down.

“I named my oldest boy after you,” she said suddenly. Steve looked up at her and it was his turn to tear up. “Oh, Steve, you would have liked him. I told him stories about you and he idolized you. He was so proud that his momma knew a real live hero.”

“I’m no hero, Peggy. I’m just a kid from Brooklyn.” He started to say more, but suddenly music started playing. And old song, popular back in the forties. Steve looked around and saw no radio, but he did see one of the agents with his hand in his pocket, smirking. “So...how ‘bout that dance now?”

“I’m not a very good dancer anymore, Steve,” Peggy replied, motioning to the wheelchair.

“That’s okay. I’ve been practicing.” He stood and lifted her easily, cradling her body close to his, and started swaying back and forth.

They danced for hours, until one of the nurses interrupted and said it was time for Peggy to go eat. Steve promised to return as soon as he could and gently set her back in the chair.

Steve started out of the home, trailed as always by the agents. “Thanks,” he said to the one who had started the music.

“For what?” the agent replied, his face as blank as ever.


End file.
